'The Music Man' plays Friday at Cathedral Prep's auditorium

By John ChaconaContributing writer

March 13, 2014 12:01 AM

By John ChaconaContributing writer

March 13, 2014 12:01 AM

SEE IT"The Music Man" will be presented in concert form by soloists and the Erie Chamber Orchestra on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Cathedral Preparatory School's H. David Bowes Auditorium, 250 W. 10th St. Free. For more on the Erie Chamber Orchestra, visit www.gannon.edu.

Kate Amatuzzo, of Millcreek Township, sings during an audition for the production of Les Miserables at the Erie Playhouse rehearsal hall on June 11. JANET B. KUMMERER/ERIE TIMES-NEWS

Quick: Name the winner of the Tony Award for best musical of 1957.

The tempting answer is "West Side Story," but the winning show that season was Meredith Willson's "The Music Man," which will be performed as a free concert by the Erie Chamber Orchestra on Friday as part of Gannon University's Fringe Festival.

Though Willson's nostalgic look at the small-town Iowa of his boyhood hasn't aged as well as the Bernstein/Sondheim classic, the songs -- which include "76 Trombones," "The Wells Fargo Wagon" and "Till There Was You" -- are evergreen.

The latter is a big number for the female lead character, Marian Paroo, the pure-hearted librarian who falls for and reforms the title music-and-flim-flam man, Harold Hill. It's a role that countless actors at community theaters and high schools have played, but one that has somehow eluded Kate Amatuzzo, at least until this production.

Amatuzzo has opera experience, so singing with a live orchestra doesn't worry her. Still she concedes that a large orchestra requires a different kind of singing than she has used in her roles at the Erie Playhouse.

"It's like not skiing for a while," she said of the adjustment.

"It takes a while to get into the style, but not too long. I miss that style and the intelligence of opera."

Amatuzzo also admits to missing the relative simplicity of being a performer, and not a director, a role she just concluded in a production of "Oklahoma" at James W. Parker Middle School, where she teaches. "It's such a relief to focus on your part as apart from worrying about everything, which you do when you're a director."

On Friday, that responsibility falls to the Rev. Shawn Clerkin with whom Amatuzzo appeared in the Playhouse's blockbuster production of "Les Miserables" in 2012. Patrick Thiem will play the title role, and Jeremy Flock will portray Hill's friend Marcellus Washburn. Erie Chamber Orchestra music director Matthew Kraemer conducts.

He may not have 76 trombones at his disposal, but he'll have songs from one of the most beloved musicals of the American lyric stage.